Oncodesign and OSEO Announce Funding of EUR 13.4 Million

This private-public partnership project, which aims to put in place the first national subsidiary dedicated to personalized medicine in oncology, has a EUR 41 million overall investment budget.

In the presence of French president, Francois Hollande, Francois Drouin, OSEO's CEO and vice-president of the BPI (Banque Publique d'Investissement), announced to Philippe Genne, Oncodesign's CEO and leader of the IMODI (Innovative MODels Initiative), that this project will receive EUR 13.4 million in funding under the French Government's Investing for the Future program.

The IMODI research project is designed to make the selection of new effective treatments to combat eight cancer pathologies easier.

The aim of this national initiative is to pool the resources allocated to the development, profiling and evaluation of more than 200 predictive experimental cancer models and a wide range of derivative biological products and tests for molecular selection.

The project also plans to create a centralized biobank with more than 40,000 biological samples and powerful data analysis tools designed to identify tumor and immunological biomarkers, as well as those coming from the microbiome.

Under the management and coordination of Oncodesign, the seven-year project brings together six industrial groups (Sanofi, Servier, Ipsen, Pierre Fabre, Transgene and Biofortis), four SMEs (Oncomedics, Ariana Pharma, CTI BIOTECH and Oncodesign) and seven French institutions (Inserm [the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research], CNRS, [the French National Center for Scientific Research], the Georges Francois Leclerc Center in Dijon, the Leon Berard Center in Lyon for cancer research and treatment, Synergie Lyon Cancer, the University of Strasbourg and Toulouse University Hospital).

Each organization belongs to one of five competitiveness clusters with authority to certify projects: Medicen, for the Paris Region, Alsace Biovalley, Lyonbiopole, Atlanpole Biotherapies in Nantes and Cancer-Bio-Sante in Toulouse.

IMODI won the investment for the 'Focal-Point Research and Development Projects for Competitiveness Clusters'. It will benefit from EUR 13.4 million of public funding after the final signing with OSEO.

These subsidies and reimbursable advances will be allocated between the project's French institutions and financed partner SMEs.

IMODI's forecasted overall investment budget of EUR 41 million also includes private investment. Over the next ten years the project will create 350 jobs within the partner companies.

With EUR 300 million in funding available to OSEO, the call for 'Focal-Point Projects for Competitiveness Clusters in Research and Development' aims to support ambitious research and development partnership projects focusing on a particular industry or area of technology which offers significant potential for economic spin-offs.

"This project offers a unique opportunity to increase the rate of innovation and identification of cancer therapies and biomarkers, with the creation of an organized national structure designed for the development of personalized medicine which directly benefits patients," says Philippe Genne, Oncodesign's president and CEO.

"OSEO is proud to have provided support to the IMODI project on behalf of the French state, as part of the Investing for the Future program," adds Francois Drouin, CEO at OSEO and vice-president at the French Public Investment Bank.

Drouin continued, "The industry's requirements, the way that the partner organizations complement each other as well as their experience and collective interest, demonstrate the synergy which will ensure the sustainability of the sector and the creation of economic and scientific value in France."

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